d Urience
Left his gray hunter dying near; and thence
They held the hunt afoot; when suddenly
Were they aware of a wide, roughened sea,
And near the wood the hart upon the sward
Bayed, panting unto death and winded hard.
Right so the king dispatched him and the _pryce_
Wound on his hunting bugle clearly thrice.

As if each echo, which that wild horn's blast
Waked from its sleep,--the quietude had cast
Tender as mercy on it,--in a band
Rose moving sounds of gladness hand in hand,
Came twelve fair damsels, sunny in sovereign white,
From that red woodland gliding. These each knight
Graced with obeisance and "Our lord," said one,
"Tenders ye courtesy until the dawn;
The Earl Sir Damas; well in his wide keep,
Seen thither with due worship, ye shall sleep."
And then they came o'erwearied to a hall,
An owlet-haunted pile, whose weedy wall
Towered based on crags rough, windy turrets high;
An old, gaunt giant-castle 'gainst a sky
Wherein the moon hung foam-faced, large and full.
Down on dank sea-foundations broke the dull,
Weird monotone of ocean, and wide rolled
The watery wilderness that was as old
As loud, defying headlands stretching out
Beneath still stars with a voluminous shout
Of wreck and wrath forever. Here the two
Were feasted fairly and with worship due
All errant knights, and then a damsel led
Each knight with flaring lamp unto his bed
Down separate corridores of that great keep;
And soon they rested in a heavy sleep.

And then King Arthur woke, and woke mid groans
Of dolorous knights; and 'round him lay the bones
Of many woful champions mouldering;
And he could hear the open ocean ring
Wild wasted waves above. And so he thought
"It is some nightmare weighing me, distraught
By that long hunt;" and then he sought to shake
The horror off and to himself awake;
But still he heard sad groans and whispering sighs,
And deep in iron-ribbed cells the eyes
Of pale, cadaverous knights shone fixed on him
Unhappy; and he felt his senses swim
With foulness of that cell, and, "What are ye?
Ghosts of chained champions or a company
Of phantoms, bodiless fiends? If speak ye can,
Speak, in God's name! for I am here--a man!"
Then groaned the shaggy throat of one who lay
A dusky nightmare dying day by day,
Yet once of comely mien and strong withal
And greatly gracious; but, now hunger-tall,
With scrawny beard an